BETWEEN FRIENDS

Buchan's Friends....

The final newsletter for the year has once again proven to be a bumper issue, with five pages. This is largely due to the efforts of our esteemed president Mick Adler writing another interesting report on the annual Friends trip over the Melbourne Cup long weekend. Rather than the usual trip to Limestone Creek, as listed in the Friends calendar in the previous issue of this newsletter, it was decided to go further afield and down to the far south-western corner of the state, to Lower Glenelg National Park. This was advertised in Nargun and at a VSA General Meeting. I hope no one turned up at Limestone Creek on spec!

The primary aim was to visit Princess Margaret Rose Cave and look at the recent improvements made to this tourist cave and discuss them with the local ranger, Bruce Allen. Of course, there were visits to other caves in the area which provided some adventures for the Friends.

In this issue there are also reports from the three other Friends working bee weekends this year at Buchan, containing information on the projects and activities in which the Friends are involved. The Friends also pay tribute to the work of Jim Daly.

The dates for the 1996 Friends weekends will be announced in the first newsletter of 1996. Two or three months advance notification of each weekend will also be published in Nargun.

The AGM will be held at the Buchan Caves Reserve on Saturday 2nd December 1995. The gathering will commence at 6:00 PM with the popular annual barbeque. When everyone has had their fill (or the food runs out) the AGM will then begin with the presentation of the Annual Report for 1994/95, a copy of which is distributed with this newsletter. The usual business will then be concluded with the election of office bearers for the coming year.

All Friends and guests are welcome; just bring your own refreshments. There will be plenty of cave talk and the opportunity to meet other Friends and Caves Reserve staff in the usual relaxed atmosphere, and to pay the $2 membership fee for 1996 to cover the cost of this newsletter.

It will be with great pride that the five Interpretation Signs designed by the Friends will be installed at strategic places in the Caves Reserve by the Friends on this weekend. They will explain and depict many aspects of karst landscapes and the history of the Reserve to the many thousands of annual visitors.

25 - 26 March 1995

by Peter Ackroyd, 1 April 1995

Present were:

Peter Ackroyd	Cathie Cranston	Spot Matthews
Mick Adler	Troy Cranston	Linda Merrall
Glenn Baddeley	Jim Daly	Kim Van Dyk
George Bradford	Erica Maggs
Neil Brenton	Jude Matthews

Revegetation was the main theme of this weekend's activities, although it was by no means the only task carried out.

Up at the Potholes revegetation plot, the Great Mullein (soft, broad leafed weed with tall flower stalk) was invading our patch of trees along with thistles and the other weed Hoarhound. Two days of vigorous swinging of hoes and mattocks had them in retreat. At the same time protective plastic sheaths were renewed around the more vulnerable tress, especially the Casuarinas, which the rabbits seemed to enjoy nibbling.

Most of the trees are now well over half a metre high with some of the more robust Blue Wattles over twice that height. It seems that only 10% or so of the trees have died so far. In the Caves Reserve more gardening was being carried out, this time to plant ornamental natives (Callistemon, Eucalypts, Grevillia, etc.), on the site of the old guides hut, in front of Fairy Cave, and up in the Northern Arm.

Underground a small team were busy carefully cleaning mud out of gours in the Mud Chamber in Fairy Cave. The Fairy Cave Information Sign in Kings Chamber was repaired (some of the laminated photographs were coming unstuck) and our new Treasurer, Jude Matthews, collected a load of coins from the two donation bins.

On Saturday night we had a slide show, prepared by Spot Matthews, and an informal Friends meeting while sitting around a warm open fire. We discussed the methods of commencing a new project to restore the fence at Wilson Cave Reserve and the progress of the Buchan Caves Reserve Interpretation Signs project.

The major Interpretation Signs Project is partly funded by a $4,800 grant from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and will end up costing about $6,000 I think. As present I'm spending around two days a week on it, carrying out research and organising graphic artists and fabricators.

The intention is to have a geology sign on top of Moon's Hill, overlooking the thrust fault on the opposite hill (above Federal Cave), a sign outside Dukes Cave discussing the whole tourist system, a sign in the main part of the Reserve talking about the history of the Reserve itself, and a sign at each of the Royal Cave and Fairy Cave entrances.

To date I have most of the necessary photos and drawings, have designed the general appearance of the signs and their stands and have completed a rough draft of the text for three signs. Lyn Sebire of the Friends has already prepared the text and layout for the Fairy Cave sign and is presently working on the Royal Cave sign. We have been ably assisted by DCNR staff in the Reserve and at the Bairnsdale Office in this project. In theory the project is to be completed by 30 June 1995, but I think we will need to apply for a 6 months extension.

by Peter Ackroyd

One of the reasons the Friends of Buchan Caves has been able the achieve so much over the last few years is the unstinting and untiring efforts of Jim Daly. Jim has demonstrated over and again that his involvement goes much deeper than "doing a job". His role in the Potholes Revegetation Project has been continuous from its inception in October 1992 and his contribution to the success of this project along has been enormous.

17 - 18 June 1995

by Peter Ackroyd, 18 June 1995

Present were:

Peter Ackroyd	Dale Calnin	Marg James
Mick Adler	Daryl Carr	Erica Maggs
Glenn Baddeley	Cathie Cranston	Peter Robertson
Michael Beeby	Jim Daly

The weather for this weekend was wet and miserable so not surprisingly the activities were either indoors or underground.

Cathie, with a small team, continued the clean-up of mud and rubble from the Mud Chamber in Fairy Cave, while the rest went over the text of the Interpretation Signs prepared by Peter Ackroyd. After much brainstorming and 'what ifs' a series of suggested improvements arose from the day long coffee and tea drinking session. The signs project reached the second draft stage and Peter planned to leave the finished text and artwork to be delivered to the printers by September 1995.

The following day a quick visit in the rain was paid to the revegetation plot at the Potholes where it was noted that the overall loss rate of the trees planted in July 1994 was still only about 10%. Some of the Eucalypts (Yellow Box) and Acacias (Limestone Wattle) were 1.5 metres high. The new protective sheaths placed around the Casuarinas (Sheoaks) in March this year have proved effective against the rabbits.

16 - 17 September 1995

by Glenn Baddeley, 21 September 1995

(also published in Nargun 28(4):25, October 1995)

Friends in attendance:

Mick Adler	Dale Calnin	Alan Oldroyd
Glenn Baddeley	Erica Maggs	John Van Dyk
Neil Brenton	Jude Matthews	Kim Van Dyk

On Saturday, the group did some maintenance work on the Potholes revegetation project, where the trees appear to be doing well. The boundary fence requires work and will be included in next year's programme. It is also planned to extend the present fenced revegetation plot to the north, doubling its size to about 2 Ha. Cathie Cranston continued with her work of cleaning out the Mud Chamber in Fairy Cave.

On Sunday, the broken information and donation board in Royal Cave was replaced with a new board and it was prepared for some updated pictures and information sheets. These were put in place the following week for the school holidays.

On this weekend the Friends decided to apply for a DCNR grant to assist with the extension of the revegetation plot at the Potholes in 1996. The grant application was prepared by Mick Adler with the help of the chief ranger Alan Oldroyd and other Friends who happened to be consuming coffee, tea and biscuits in the guide hut at the time.

The FOBC go West to Lower Glenelg National Park

4 - 7 November 1995

by Mick ADLER, 11 November 1995

Friends in attendance:

Mick ADLER	Yvonne INGEME	Monica STEEL
Glenn BADDELEY	Andy LOVELL	Phil STEEL
Michael BEEBY	Erica MAGGS	Rob SMYTH
George CHRISTIE	John McINTYRE
Cathie CRANSTON	Brody STEEL

Glenn, Erica, Cathie and I stayed at the Scout Hall in Portland on Friday night. We all met at the Scout Hall at 8:30 AM Saturday morning and travelled to Nelson where Phil STEEL and Family were to stay. Then the rest of us proceeded to Princess Margaret Rose Cave Reserve camping ground where we put up our tents. It was decided that we would do the 12 noon tour of 3G-6 Princess Margaret Rose Cave.

The group was made most welcome at the Information Centre by Bruce ALLEN (Ranger in Charge) and Viv PETERS. Entry to the cave is from within the Information Centre. We were then given a "First Class" tour of the cave system. We were shown the improvements that Bruce had done or supervised. The result was magnificent. The half hour tour expanded out to an hour and a quarter, the longest tour on record.

There is an open high stairway down into the cave proper, which is about 160 m long. The cave is a long fissure approximately 8-10 m wide. The walls are mainly free of decoration but there are massive columns coming from the centre of the roof and a lot of stalactites; these formations occur for nearly the full length of the cave. Bruce has installed 50 watt low voltage lighting throughout the cave. Because there is no decoration along the walls, the lighting cables were cut into the walls and then the walls were patched with cement made from the limestone powder. You cannot see where the cables are run, just the lights. Very impressive.

After lunch Glenn took us out to find some caves in the thick bush near Curran's Creek, by this time the rain had become constant making the going very wet. We located 3G-42 and 3G-41, these were small but interesting, the best feature was that we were out of the rain. Glenn then led us to 3G-4 Curran's Creek Cave by a round about route. We spent about 3/4 of an hour getting through, to end up 10 metres from where we went in. By now the rain was very heavy, so it was decided to return to camp and have dinner. Fortunately we had erected a cover over the camp fire place so we had a dry area to prepare meals and sit.

On Sunday morning it was still raining as we went to find a cave George CHRISTIE knew about and had permission to visit on a private property about 30 km from Nelson. We collected Phil and his family on the way. Andy and Rob were waiting for us outside the property when we arrived. We then drove up to the doline / sinkhole fairly near a farm house. This cave has had very few visitors over the years, and does not appear to be known by V.S.A. The hole was tremendous, estimated to be about 25-30 metres deep. One side was sloping but steep, the rest were vertical. The exposed walls were inclined layers of sandy sedimentary rock laid over a layer of volcanic ash, over the limestone bedding rock. There were a couple of wild bee hives attached to protected sections of the rock face.

Glenn and George set up a 50 m hand line to the bottom of the sinkhole with a traverse for increased safety. The hand line just reached the base of the sinkhole. At the bottom there was a smallish hole dropping down a mud slope to a small creek in the bottom for the main passage of the cave. Just inside the entrance there was the sound of rushing water, this was the flow of a stream which disappeared down through the rocks under the entrance and appeared to go deeper into the sinkhole and is supposed to end up in the Glenelg River. This area could have been entered with difficulty but it looked very unstable and tight.

When all were in the cave we looked around. In front of us was the main passage, about 3-4 m wide and 6-7 m high, and to our left a smaller passage, 1.5 m in diameter, emerged also with a small water flow. It was decided to follow the main stream further into the cave. The passage did not get much narrower but the height varied between 2 and 10 m. While walking up the stream we saw areas of decoration, these were at a low level (0.75 - 1.5 m above the water level) and narrow (0.3 - 0.6 m high), but stretched for several metres along the passage at a time. Others reached up to 2 m and several metres across and very pretty.

By the time we had gone about 50 m into the cave we came across the first of the mud banks, these stretched for about 10 m and were quite deep (about 0.3 m) and sticky. We sloshed through the mud. Several of the party had gum boots which were nearly lost through the suction of the mud. Erica in particular had trouble with her gum boots, on several occasions Michael had to extract Erica and her boots from the sloppy mud. She could not lift her feet out of the mud, they either would not move or she would have left the boots behind when her feet came clear. Michael had to dig around the boots with his hands to remove enough mud so that Erica could move. Up in front all we could hear was Erica laughing and Michael trying to help without laughing too loud.

After an estimated 350 m we came to a major rock fall with a low crawl through the VERY COLD water or a climb over the top. Cathie decided to crawl through with others, making sure she did not rub out short straws hanging from the roof line. By this time Glenn, Phil, Rob, Brody, George and Michael had climbed over the top and were proceeding further into the cave. Cathie followed them for a further 100 m up to a small choke needing to belly crawl through. That was as far as most of the team got, but Michael and Rob went through and proceeded another 50 - 100 m before being called back. They had not reached the first water fall, so there is still a fair way to go. On the way back to the entrance the mud banks which we had come through earlier were now sloppier and wetter, covering all our gear and grotties with layers of mud. The climb out was now a bit more difficult as it had not stopped raining and everything was wetter and we being covered in mud made the rocks slipperier on the way out: "Yuck".

Another trip is to be planned when it is warmer and not raining to do a full survey of the sinkhole and the cave. This survey will take several trips into the cave. A long weekend will be needed to do it justice.

Getting up out of the sinkhole was harder, but there were no problems thanks to the hand line. Everyone was wet, muddy, and as it was still raining, it was decided to go back to camp at P.M.R., shower, change, and go back to Nelson and have dinner at the pub. After a delightful meal everyone talked about the next day, Monday, and the lack of any clean or dry caving gear. So we decided to go to Mt. Gambier for the day and do some touristing. George said he would go home and Yvonne said she would come on the tour and then head back to Hamilton.

Cathie and I, with Michael, thought as everything was so wet we would pull the plug and stay in Mt. Gambier Monday night. The next morning George, Yvonne and ourselves packed up camp, and when Phil turned up we all drove to Mt. Gambier and were to meet at 2 PM at 5L-12 Tantanoola Tourist Cave. After booking into a caravan park Cathie, Michael and I went and had a look at 5L-4 Town Hall Cave right in the centre of town. It is used as a storm water drain. The surrounds are beautifully kept. It is not possible to enter the cave proper, there was a lot of rubbish in and around where the water disappeared. On to Tantanoola, about 15 km West of Mt. Gambier.

After pushing the 110 km/hour speed limit we were just in time for the tour. Inside the entrance the cave was very dark as the guide had only turned on enough lighting to get everybody inside. Tantanoola Tourist Cave is a relatively small cave, only 30 m long and really only one main chamber, BUT the amount of decoration is overwhelming, the number of different types of formation and their size were difficult to comprehend. It was very impressive. From Tantanoola it was another fast trip back to 5L-19 / 5-L20E Engelbrecht Cave in Mt. Gambier, again we were just in time for the tour. This cave is an old sink hole that had been used by the early settlers as a rubbish dump for a number of years.

The Lions Club organised to remove about 400 tonnes of rubbish out of the hole. They put in a stairway, gates, platforms and lighting in both caves for public viewing of the caves. Cave divers, with permission, can dive approximately 500 m in either direction. There is no link between the two stretches of underwater and underground passages. To see both sections we returned to the doline and entered via the other gate. The above water passages we went to were not pretty to see for there were no decorations. The only nice structure was where the water had dissolved away the limestone to create the caves. After this tour everyone went their own way, Glenn and Erica back to P.M.R., Phil, Monica and Brody back to Nelson, Yvonne home to Hamilton, Cathie, Michael and myself an early dinner and back to the local caravan park for an early night.

Tuesday morning my party went to the "Lady Nelson Park" for a tour through the Interpretive Attraction, it was very good. A look was had through a replica of the 60 ton brig "Lady Nelson", which did a lot of exploration of the area from Adelaide to Bass Strait and Tasmania.

Next there was an animated neon volcano to show how Mt. Gambier blew its top years ago. We then went to a glass floored passage. Under the floor there are fossils, bones and artefacts from long ago, some were 40,000 years old, there were more samples on the walls. We saw a video of historical Mt. Gambier and the modern "Green Triangle" of S.E. South Australia and S.W. Victoria.

On the way out of Mt. Gambier we stopped at 5L-6D Umpherston Cave for a look at the beautiful but totally artificial reclamation of the sinkhole, which had been used as a receptacle for sawmill waste for a large number of years. The hole had been cleaned and a covered set of stairs led down to a delightful garden setting. Ivy, many years old, grew down the sinkhole walls in some cases over 15 m long. The tiered gardens were planted with a number of non-native plants and bushes which looked nice but out of place.

It was time to head for home, but we stopped at Wannon Falls, near Hamilton, for a look and take photos. It was a bit damp from the spray, the fall had plenty of water flowing over the edge. We finally arrived home in Melbourne at about 6 PM after a magnificent long weekend away with a good group of keen cavers. I know we had a wet but enjoyable time.

Born: 22 January 1940
Died: 14 May 1995

Bill was very active with youth activities and community affairs, participating with the Mt. Evelyn C.F.A., St. John Ambulance, the local football teams, and Scouting.

He joined the Scouting Movement and received his Warrant on 6 March 1973 as Assistant Cub Leader at Mt. Evelyn. On 10 June 1975 Bill transferred to Venturer Leader at Mt. Evelyn, and became District Scout Leader for Lillydale District on 15 December 1986.

Bill commenced caving informally about 19 years ago. He, some Rovers and his Venturers were using hemp ropes, figure 8s and wire ladders with the rungs held on with U bolts, which had a tendency to slip every so often.

Bill with others helped run the Caving activity for the 5th Australian Venture in Buchan for two weeks in January 1981. After the Venture they got together and formed Lillydale District Caving Team.

LDCT was formalised on 28 February 1984. Bill was one of the two original members left in the Team and reached the qualification of Caving Instructor on 15 June 1987 and was voted in as one of the first Life Members of the Team in February 1994.

Bill was very active in cave conservation, partly through teaching Team members and Venturers how to look after the cave environment, and was a foundation member of the Friends of Buchan Caves. He continued being an active worker in both of these loves until ill health stopped his travelling to Buchan and other caving areas.

Bill's knowledge, enthusiasm, teaching and friendship will be missed by all who knew him.

Mick Adler (VSA, LDCT, FOBC), 3 June 1995